Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Manender Singh
Sonipat, India
manjeetsharma210@gmail.com
Abstract: Green marketing is a phenomenon which has developed particular important in the modern market.
It is a vital constituent of the holistic marketing concept today. It is particularly applicable to those businesses
that are directly dependent on the physical environment. Changes in the physical environment may pose a threat
to all the concerned industries. Consequently new types of products were created, called "green" products,
which would cause less damage to the environment. Thus green marketing plays an important role to promote
the idea of environmental protection and sustainable development both in the minds of the customer and the
marketers.
Today People around the world are becoming more aware of the environmental stresses. Social movements,
media are also nowadays enhancing consumers attention towards the environmental effects a product may
have. To cope with these changes in the society, marketers have adopted green marketing concept in order to
sustain in the market. This paper will attempt to introduce the concept of green marketing; examine some
reasons that make the organizations interested to adopt green marketing philosophy. This paper also makes an
assessment of the strategies of green marketing and challenges of green marketing. Through this paper, the
researcher also intended to draw the attention of modern customer and marketers towards Green Products.
1. INTRODUCTION
The term Green Marketing also known as environmental marketing and ecological marketing
was came into force in the late 1980s and early 1990s.It was begun from Europe in the early 1980
when some products were identified to be harmful for environment. As a result, new green products
were introduced that were less damaging to the environment. In 1975, the first workshop on
"Ecological Marketing" was held by the American Marketing Association (AMA). As a result the first
book on green marketing entitled "Ecological Marketing" was introduced. In India green marketing
was started in late 1990s. Government, manufacturer are became aware to adopt the green marketing.
Government is adopted the policy to save the earth and manufacturer adopted the policy to take
sustainable competitive advantage from the green marketing.
The government of India launched an Eco-mark Scheme in 1991 to increase consumer awareness in
respect of environment friendly products. The aim of the scheme is to encourage the customers to
purchase those products which have less harmful environmental impact. According to Peattie (2001),
the evolution of green marketing has three phases. First phase was termed as "Ecological" green
marketing. During this period all marketing activities were concerned to help environment problems
and provide remedies for environmental problems. Second phase was "Environmental" green
marketing. During this phase the focus shifted on clean technology that involved designing of
innovative new products, which take care of pollution and waste issues. Third phase was
"Sustainable" green marketing. It came into prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000.
Green marketing refers to the process of selling products and services based on their environmental
benefits. Such a product or service may be environmentally friendly in it or produced and packaged in
an environmentally friendly way. Green marketing includes a broad range of activities like product
modification, changing the production process, modified advertising, change in packaging, etc., aimed
at reducing the detrimental impact of products and their consumption and disposal on the
environment. Companies all over the world are striving to reduce the impact of products and services
on the climate and other environmental parameters. Marketers are taking the cue and are going green.
According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), "Green marketing is the marketing of
products that are presumed to be environmentally safe, involves developing and promoting products
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and services that satisfy customers want and need for Quality, Performance, Affordable Pricing and
Convenience without having a detrimental input on the environment" Green marketing also ties
closely with issues of industrial ecology and environmental sustainability such as extended producers
liability, life-cycle analysis, material use and resource flows, and eco-efficiency.
According to J. Polonsky, green marketing can be defined as, "All activities designed to generate and
facilitate any exchange intended to satisfy human needs or wants such that satisfying of these needs
and wants occur with minimal detrimental input on the national environment."
According to Elkington (1994), green consumer as one who avoids products that are likely to
endanger the health of the consumer or others; cause significant damage to the environment during
manufacture, use of disposal; consume a disproportionate amount of energy; cause unnecessary waste;
use materials derived from threatened species or environments; involve unnecessary use of or cruelty
to animals; adversely affect other countries.
Thus, green marketing involves developing and promoting all those products and services which
satisfy the customers want and need for Quality, Performance, Affordable Pricing and Convenience
without having a detrimental input on the environment.
2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Karthik and Ramya (2012) observed that the environmental problems in India are growing rapidly.
The increasing economic development, rapid growth of population and growth of industries in India is
putting a strain on the environment, infrastructure and the countries natural resources. So it's the right
time to implement the Green Marketing in India. Green Marketing makes drastic change in the
business not even in India but save the world from pollution.
Singh G. (2013) concluded that the green marketing has the potential to not only provide huge
business opportunities across the globe, but countries can also utilize such marketing activity to
engender peace, friendship and inclusive growth. However, there should be global consensus on the
implementation of green initiatives and environmental standards and norms so that the
developed/industrialized nations do not seriously undermine the development agenda of the faster
growing developing countries/emerging market economies. In the absence of such sensitivity to the
development concerns of the industrializing countries, there could be a backlash and a setback to the
entire concept of green marketing.
Sanjay K. Jain & Gurmeet Kaur (2004) in his study observed that the environmentalism has
emerged as a worldwide development. Companies have started responding to environmental situation
by exercising green marketing strategies. Consumer has played a indispensable role in making
business organizations green marketing oriented.
Karna, J., Hansen, E. & Juslin, H. (2003) observed that proactive marketers are the most genuine
group in implementing environmental marketing voluntarily and seeking competitive advantage
through environmental friendliness. The results also give evidence that green values, environmental
marketing strategies, structures and functions are logically connected to each other as hypothesized
according to the model of environmental marketing used to guide this study.
3. OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
To know the concept of green marketing.
To describe the challenges of green marketing.
To define the ways to green your business.
4. REASONS TO BE GREEN
Most of the companies are venturing into green marketing because of the following reasons:
Opportunity: Organizations perceive environmental marketing to be an opportunity that can be
used to achieve its objectives. In India, around 25% of the consumers prefer environment friendly
products, and around 28% may be considered health conscious. Therefore, green marketers have
diversified to fairly sizeable segment of consumers to cater the needs.
Social-Responsibility: Organizations believe that they have a moral obligation to be more socially
responsible.
International Journal of Managerial Studies and Research (IJMSR)
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5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The study is primarily based on secondary data. It focuses on Literature review, News Papers,
Journals, websites and the other reliable sources.
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marketing myopia, marketers must fulfil consumer needs and interests beyond environmental
requirements.
Social Auditing of Green claims: Another problem of green marketing is lack of properly
adaptation of social auditing of the green claim. We know that the claims of the market and nonmarket forces of going green must be done only through proper auditing procedure but the reality
is that there is no legal authority to verify or evaluate such claims. Even we see some political
parties are not interested to implement environment protective measures. For example, some state
governments tried and issued notification banning use of polythene bags, but in practice, it could
not be controlled and the polythene bags are used openly in the market.
Sustainability: Initially the profits are very low since renewable and recyclable products and
green technologies are more expensive. Green marketing will be successful only in long run.
Hence the business needs to plan for long term rather than short term strategy and prepare for the
same, at the same time it should avoid falling into lure of unethical practices to make profits in
short term.
Non Cooperation: The firms practicing Green marketing have to strive hard in convincing the
stakeholders and many a times it may fail to convince them about the long term benefits of Green
marketing as compared to short term expenses.
Unwilling to pay premium: If green products are produced more, then the cost of production also
raises due to raise of raw material cost and further after rises of production cost and low sales,
the price of the green product is also raise. In that condition consumers are not ready to pay a
premium amount for green products.
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your heating and cooling bills. Many states will perform free energy audits, and will pay for some
or all of the repairs.
Power your office with alternative energy: In many areas of the country you can sign up to
purchase green power from your current utility provider. Green power is generated from
renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, geothermal, hydropower and plant
matter. Purchasing green power increases your electric bill by a small percentage, which is used to
purchase clean energy that is fed into the electrical grid.
Use public transportation, drive an alternative fuel or hybrid vehicles, or bike: Any of these
three methods of transportation will reduce the carbon footprint of your business and highlight
your environmental commitment. All will save you money over time.
Recycle outside the box: In addition to recycling everything that can be recycled, think green
when buying or replacing items. Consider purchasing used or vintage office furniture instead of
brand new pieces. You can find great deals on barely used office furniture on eBay and Craigslist.
Utilize green web hosting: Green web hosts are companies that take part in a variety of activities,
such as using renewable energy, planting trees, or buying carbon offsets and renewable energy
certificates to reduce or mitigate the environmental cost of running their servers and infrastructure.
Most green companies cost the same or less than companies running servers using fossil fuels.
9. CONCLUSION
Green marketing is considered as an instrument to bring about environmental change. This research
concluded that green marketing is an opportunity whose benefit marketer can take by providing green
products and creating awareness about these products by using different tools. Through green
marketing companies produce those products which are environment friendly and save the planet.
Green marketing improves the brand image and sales of the various companies. To have sustainable
polluted free environment it is paramount to implement the concept of green marketing by all
companies.
In India Green marketing is still in its infancy stage. There are sufficient opportunities for green
marketing but it may also face lot of challenges like existence of Non Cooperation, Unwilling to pay
premium, lack of Sustainability, lack of properly adaptation of social auditing of the green claim,
Green Myopia etc. Most of the companies are venturing into green marketing because of opportunity,
social responsibility, Govt. Pressure, competitive edge and cost reduction. Now this is the right time
to select Green Marketing globally, it will create a future opportunity for the business. With the
threat of global warming looming large, it is extremely important that green marketing becomes the
norm rather than an exception or just a fad. Recycling of paper, metals, plastics, etc., in a safe and
environmentally harmless manner should become much more systematized and universal.
International Journal of Managerial Studies and Research (IJMSR)
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SUGGESTION
Finally it suggests measure to increase the practices of green marketing. The increasing economic
development, rapid growth of population and growth of industries in India are putting a strain on the
environment, infrastructure and the countries natural resources. Industrial pollution, soil erosion,
deforestation, rapid industrialization, urbanization, and land degradation are all worsening problems.
So its the right time to implement the Green Marketing in India.
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